Famous Lies Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Lies poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lies poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lies poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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To Seem The Stranger Lies My Lot My Life

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
 England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by...Read more of this...

White in the Moon the Long Road Lies

by A E Housman
 White in the moon the long road lies, 
The moon stands blank above; 
White in the moon the long road lies 
That leads me from my love. 

Still hangs the hedge without a gust, 
Still, still the shadows stay: 
My feet upon the moonlit dust 
Pursue the ceaseless way. 

The world is round, so travellers tell, 
And straight though...Read more of this...

Lisette and Eileen

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “When he was here alive, Eileen, 
There was a word you might have said; 
So never mind what I have been, 
Or anything,—for you are dead. 

“And after this when I am there
Where he is, you’ll be dying still. 
Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,— 
The rest of you be what it will. 

“’Twas all to save...Read more of this...

Lies About Love

by D. H. Lawrence
 We are a liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.
The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love! love!
as if it were a coin with a...Read more of this...

Love

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 The longer I live and the more I see 
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above, 
The stronger this truth comes home to me--- 
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love, 
A love so limitless, deep, and broad, 
That men have re-named it, and called it God.

And nothing that was ever born or evolved, 
Nothing...Read more of this...

For The Year Of The Insane

by Anne Sexton
 a prayer

O Mary, fragile mother, 
hear me, hear me now 
although I do not know your words. 
The black rosary with its silver Christ 
lies unblessed in my hand 
for I am the unbeliever. 
Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, 
a small black angel. 
O Mary, permit me this grace, 
this crossing over, 
although I am...Read more of this...

Dam?tas

by George (Lord) Byron
 In law an infant, and in years a boy,
In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;
Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Women his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Dam?tas ran through all...Read more of this...

Psalm 19 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 The books of nature and scripture.
For a Lord's-day morning

Behold, the lofty sky
Declares its Maker God,
And all his starry works on high
Proclaim his power abroad.

The darkness and the light
Still keep their course the same;
While night to day, and day to night,
Divinely teach his name.

In every diff'rent land
Their general voice is known;
They show the wonders of his hand,
And orders of his...Read more of this...

Unto one who lies at rest

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 Unto one who lies at rest 
'Neath the sunset, in the West, 
Clover-blossoms on her breast. 

Lover of each gracious thing 
Which makes glad the summer-tide, 
From the daisies clustering 
And the violets purple-eyed, 
To those shy and hidden blooms 
Which in forest coverts stay, 
Sending wandering perfumes 
Out as guide to show the way, 
All she knew, to...Read more of this...

The Robe of Christ

by Joyce Kilmer
 (For Cecil Chesterton)

At the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil
And he won the Robe of Christ.
When the Devil comes in his proper form
To the chamber where I dwell,
I know him and make the Sign of the Cross
Which drives him back to Hell.
And when he comes like a friendly man
And...Read more of this...

Herein a Blossom lies --

by Emily Dickinson
 Herein a Blossom lies --
A Sepulchre, between --
Cross it, and overcome the Bee --
Remain -- 'tis but a Rind....Read more of this...

Sonnet CI

by William Shakespeare
 O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd?'
Because he needs no praise, wilt...Read more of this...

Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go

by Arthur Hugh Clough
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we...Read more of this...

Love Lies Sleeping

by Elizabeth Bishop
 Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
 coupling the ends of streets 
 to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
 put out the neon shapes 
 that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows,...Read more of this...

Wide Lies Australia

by Henry Lawson
 Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her 
Flow for her unity – all states in one. 
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her – 
Never was conquest so peacefully won. 
Fair lies Australia! with all things within her 
Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be: 
Free to the White Man to woo and to win her: 
Those...Read more of this...

Beyond

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Beyond yon dim old mountain's shadowy height,
  The restless sun droops low his grand old face;
While downward sweeps the trembling veil of night,
  To hide the earth; the frost king's filmy lace
Rests on the mountain's hoary snow-crowned head,
  And adds to it a softened grace; the light
Which dies afar in faint and fading red
  In purple...Read more of this...

The Eternal Goodness

by John Greenleaf Whittier
 O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My...Read more of this...

To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Ladys Brother and Sister

by Phillis Wheatley
 On Death's domain intent I fix my eyes,
Where human nature in vast ruin lies,
With pensive mind I search the drear abode,
Where the great conqu'ror has his spoils bestow'd;
There there the offspring of six thousand years
In endless numbers to my view appears:
Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust,
And nations mix with their primeval dust:
Insatiate still he gluts the ample...Read more of this...

Here lies the body of John Crow

by Thomas Paine
Here lies the body of John Crow,
Who once was high, but now is low;
Ye brother Crows take warning all,
For as you rise, so must you fall....Read more of this...

A Blockhead

by Amy Lowell
 Before me lies a mass of shapeless days,
Unseparated atoms, and I must
Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust
Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays,
There are none, ever. As a monk who prays
The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust
Each tasteless particle aside, and just
Begin again the task which never stays.
And I have known a glory of great suns,
When days flashed...Read more of this...

Love Lies Bleeding

by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover
Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading:
Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her:
Love lies bleeding.

Stately shine his purple plumes, exceeding
Pride of princes: nor shall maid or lover
Find on earth a fairer sign worth heeding.

Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recover
Strength and spirit again, with life receding:
Hope and joy, wind-winged, about him...Read more of this...

An Old Man To His Sleeping Young Bride

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 As when the old moon lighted by the tender
And radiant crescent of the new is seen,
And for a moment's space suggests the splendor
Of what in its full prime it once has been,
So on my waning years you cast the glory
Of youth and pleasure, for a little hour;
And life again seems like an unread story,
And joy and hope both stir...Read more of this...

By The Stream

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a...Read more of this...

A Dream Lies Dead

by Dorothy Parker
 A dream lies dead here. May you softly go 
Before this place, and turn away your eyes, 
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies 
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, 
But, for a little, let your step be slow. 
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise 
With words of hope and Spring and...Read more of this...

Westward on the High-Hilled Plains

by A E Housman
 Westward on the high-hilled plains 
Where for me the world began, 
Still, I think, in newer veins 
Frets the changeless blood of man. 

Now that other lads than I 
Strip to bathe on Severn shore, 
They, no help, for all they try, 
Tread the mill I trod before. 

There, when hueless is the west 
And the darkness hushes wide,...Read more of this...

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